All Bow no Arrow

By Monojit Lahiri | July 20, 2013

My friend was ecstatic after seeing the recent Dhanush-Sonam Kapoor starrer Raanjhanaa and couldn’t stop freaking out about the hero and the director’s audacity in casting a slightly built, short, dark, plain-looking, zero-abs South Indian leading man in a story based in the heart of the Hindi heartland — Varanasi: “It just (for the zillionth time) proves to all those fair-skinned, Hindi-speaking obsessed bozos, that good cinema is about striking a chord at a universally, human level. It has nothing to do with cast, color, creed, language or region!”

He isn’t alone. The Kolaveri star has garnered purple prose from the media, almost without exception. The film seems to have resonated with sections of the audience keen to sample cinema that goes beyond the glamor, gloss, star-driven vehicles. The only major irritant is the oft-repeated query to the director Anand L. Rai: Why is he so South-specific? Why Madhavan in his earlier Tanu Weds Manu and now Dhanush?

The filmmaker is, by turn, exasperated, baffled and annoyed. “Madhavan was selected because he fit the part perfectly. Did the film suffer? Wasn’t their chemistry, face-offs and interactions — Kangana’s loud, raucous, over-the-top character against his shy, reserved, embarrassed, low-profile persona — the soul of that successful film? Similarly Dhanush was penciled in because he was so right. The role needed someone like him. Koi aur dhang ka mila hi nahi, so he came on. Tell me something: would all these questions happen if I cast a Sunny (Deol), Akshay (Kumar) or Ajay (Devgan)? Is the charming cross-over quotient — the soul of the film — nothing? Why this persistent, myopic, one-dimensional and provincial mindset?”

Loaded question, but one that has remained one of Bollywood’s worst kept secrets. Sure, there was Pradeep Kumar, Joy Mukherjee, Biswajit, Uttam Kumar and of course the hottest Mithun Chakravarty from Bengal, but hey, six in sixty years is not a remarkable strike rate, right? Admittedly the great Southie thespians Shivaji and Gemini Ganeshan did grace the Hindi screen as did the amazing Kamal Hassan and Rajnikanth. Later, they were joined by male hotties like Suriya Sivakumar, Rana Daggubati, Vikram, Siddharth and Prithviraj Sukumaran, but let’s be honest, did any one of them get the support, patronage or encouragement from any of the Bollywood tycoons, as all the Khans did, or even newbies like Varun Dhawan and Sid Malhotra?

Veteran TV and film actress Joyosree Arora (Hum Log, Chak De! India) reckons that there is a method in the madness behind this, lapse. “I believe it has to do with two things: the stories, legends, fables, fairy tales and mythology that we grew up on and the basic content-profile that is celebrated in Bollywood against Bengal and the South. All the stories that colored our childhood had a simple, predictable and loved narrative. There was the hero, the central figure — tall, handsome, strong, brave, courageous, forever protecting the weak by fighting off evil and emerging victorious. Even the Mills & Boons dream man followed this template of sharing those attributes, remember? Why should the hero in popular cinema be any different? After all, he is a universally loved and known figure. The North Indian (with his tall built, fair skin, Aryan features and fluency with the Hindi language) fits the bill perfectly, so traditionally it’s this model (from Dilip Kumar to Ranbir Kapoor) which continues to sweep the popularity polls, pan-India.”

The other reason, Arora believes, is more subtle, since it relates to content: “This area is both region and sensibilities specific. For example, the best of Bengali or Kerala cinema remains rigidly and consciously glamor-free, rich in content … delicate, layered and nuanced. It is likely to deal with more internalization and inward journeys redolent with sensitivity than loud, armpit-rhetoric or audience-friendly dramabaazi. In this scheme of things the hot, six-pack dudes are not required. Solid, intense actors are, irrespective of their color, height and looks. Now, while these heroes will always be admired and revered by fans of their specific regions or the cognoscenti, at a pan-India, popular level, they can never rock, because they lack the desired ingredients of a Shahrukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan or Ranbir Kapoor. This is not value judgment, but conditioning and perception at play.”

Mumbai-based, college student Mala Kapoor contemptuously dismisses the rationale: “Bollywood, as a space, has always been hugely racist, shamelessly rooting for a particular prototype, ignoring, rejecting, dismissing, praising, but not casting, any male hero who does not fit into their dumb, myopic mold. Wasn’t Kamal Haasan (for example) totally amazing in Sagar and mind-blowing in Sadma? Was there any genuine, insightful follow-up? Wasn’t Uttam Kumar splendid in Amanush. So? Weren’t the recent spate of heroes from the South hot and exciting? Sure they need time to blend with the popular perception of a B-town mainstream hero, but was that given to them? The argument is that their lack of language skills, looks, heights, etc. run counter to the required image of our hero. Maybe, but is Bollywood so starved and bankrupt of visionary, daring filmmakers and production houses that they just can’t dream up projects that are entertaining and engaging to go beyond the corny stereotype (starring the same heroes) to offer audiences riveting performances from refreshing new faces?

“Aren’t the 1980s Ek Duje ke Liye and recent Raanjhana solid examples of content and substance demolishing Jurassic notions of right and wrong? If the tons of earlier films bombed with regional heroes, it’s largely because of the director’s stupid insistence of shoe-horning them into typical Bollywood masala hero’s mould, ignoring their individual and specific areas of strength and core competence. Can Rajni’s crazy over-the-top antics ever work in a B-town project for a pan India audience? It’s strictly region and audience-specific, mind it. Same with Uttam Kumar and other regional, talented heroes. Dhanush, in this scenario, symbolizes a breath of fresh air. More wind beneath his wings!”

Mayank Shekhar, film critic at the Hindustan Times, believes that Dhanush is only one of the many spectacular exceptions to grab popular attention from regional cinema in the last few decades, but can he hold on to it? Shekhar says: “Mainstream Bollywood is far too deep rooted in popular imagination and it goes pan-India. There will always be films and off-beat leading men (from regional cinema) to rock the boat, garner rave reviews and appreciation and generate expectation, but across the decades, how many of these actors have really successfully, managed the cross-over? Without playing the blame-game and finger-pointing, this phenomenon has and will continue to happen and more power to it, but will that definitive cross-over movement — with enthusiastic patronage from production houses, filmmakers, critics and audiences — ever see the light of day? Remember, exceptions don’t prove the rule. Let’s wait and watch.”

Film critic Saibal Chatterjee is convinced that “this is yet another fringe happening, grabbing attention because of its stark and dramatically different portrayal of the hero. The hero in mainstream Bollywood is usually a hunk who is tall, fair, handsome, tough and hot on conventional action, romance and dance. If he has a Khan, Kapoor, Khanna or Kumar tag attached and is a North-Indian, it’s a huge plus. It’s not acting, but posturing that counts. Occasionally fringe players like Kamal or Uttam (or from within, Amol and Farooque) turn up and gain some attention, but they can never hope to aspire stardom. Popular, pan-India audiences are too zonked with the glitzy, glamor and bravado of an Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan and Akshay Kumar, Hrithik Roshan and Ranbir Kapoor to flip over Dhanush. Sure, he is cute and different, but for fantasy it has to be the real thing!”

Chatterjee deeply laments this line of thinking, but believes it’s the sign of the “consumerist times we live in, where the media, PR machinery and advertising conspire to constantly and aggressively celebrate the externals — physical looks — totally ignoring and dismissing the essence. There is of course vested interest at play because the glamor industry, fashion and movies, is huge and maddeningly seductive to the young, aspirational, upwardly mobile segment (now visible in large numbers in Tier 2 cities also) forever looking up to ape their model stars. In this scheme of things, Dhanush is unlikely to ever feature because he is too plain and ordinary to copy.”

So, the jury is out. While Dhanush and Raanjhanaa has indeed attracted eyeballs, the Kolaveri guy is unlikely to remove the role of the Southerner as the other in B-town. Sure, their actresses rock and hotties Priyamani, Shreya Saran and Charmee are burning up the screen with their item numbers in Bollywood, but the men will have to make their peace as actors who enjoyed the highs of fleeting and transient fame in the movie capital. Nothing more. Nothing less.